Nowhere@All

In Regards to Chapter 5 through Chapter 8 of

Walter Mosley's Blue Light



briankessler@nowhereatall.net

http://www.nowhereatall.net



27 January 1999



As discussed previously, the idea of reading blood doesn't work very well for me. Blood did not evolve for the purpose of communication, but rather for distributing oxygen, nutrients, and antibodies. Any "in house" communication is taken care of by the nervous system.

And since blood is meant to stay in the body and not be shared with others (which usually only happens if you become a meal], the ability to carry or transmit messages through blood [where they are not needed by the organism itself] does not seem likely to occur.

Give me telepathy. Give me Vulcan Mind Melds. Keep your blood readings to yourself.



In regard to the idea that blood transcends race, I'm not completely sure how accurate that is. We have always know there has been more to blood types than A, B, AB, and O, such as the Rh factor. And then there are various blood disorders (I can't think of specific examples off hand) that have been linked in various degrees to race.

But putting such questions aside, I really don't see much importance to the question. The author didn't turn it into an issue and I think any conjectures along that line are but idle speculation.



I thought it was interesting that Coyote's story was told in a Native American voice. I thought that was cute, but I'm not completely sure about the implications. Is it saying something about Native Americans or the way they relate to nature? Is it significant that I can not recall any Native Americans infected with the blue light, such that this seems to be the only real reference to them? And why was only the Coyote given such a distinctive voice?



In regard to Gray Man sucking electricity when he comes back to life, I felt that Gray Man was kind of a combination between Frankenstein's monster and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. The monster, in a sense was also dead fleshed turned into a metahuman, and the monster also began its new life with a jolt of electricity. And the monster was also basically lonely and sought to revenge itself on its creator. Gray Man also seemed to have an isolated existence, often in exile and seemed determined to revenge itself on those others of the blue light which created it.

The comparison to Jekyll & Hyde is slightly more interesting in its inversion, however. Jekyll created Hyde which was a persona he would adopt in order to go out and commit morally questionable acts. Gray Man revived Horace in order to be, at times, socially acceptable.

All three/five characters owed their existence to technology and all acted in a manner that we might call morally reprehensible. But then there are many who are morally reprehensible without owing much to technology. In fact, elsewhere I argued that the stories of Frankenstein

and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde both lacked any heroes except for a sort of Sadesque antihero... and Sade's characters needed little technology to fuel their viciousness. Thus I would not quickly paint a link between technology and evil. I think the link is even more dodgy considering how rarely we see Gray Man suck on electricity and how little attention Mosley actually calls to those scenes.



I didn't think so much about Grey Man's dead host shouting. I suppose there may have been too much defying my credibility already for it to make a difference... or maybe the phrase was just so small that I overlooked it. Or maybe its because the undead is such an old and tired theme. If we are going to except dead men walking around killing people, it's simplicity to accept a simple shout from them.









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